In an effort to close a "real gap" in its social and collaborative technology offerings for students, Lehigh University in Pennsylvania has been piloting Mahara, an open source tool that links with its learning management system, Moodle.

Shortly, Instructure's cloud-based and open source learning management system (LMS) will include a new messaging feature that replaces the standard LMS inbox. The company is also readying a mobile edition specifically for students.

Oracle has announced the availability of the Java Platform Standard Edition 7 (Java SE 7). This is the first release of the core Java platform under Oracle's stewardship and the first new version of Java to make it out of the open source community in five years.

At the Campus Technology 2011 conference, happening this week in Boston, Moodlerooms and Cengage Learning revealed a new partnership that will allow the companies' learning tools to interact and bring new integration features to the open source learning management system Moodle.

Auburn University, with about 25,000 students, has decided to move off commercial LMS and onto Instructure Canvas following an evaluation process lasting several months. Instructors will be expected to migrate to the new LMS by spring 2013.

Determined to make introductory college science courses more manageable for students, two professors at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC, are developing a digital textbook based on the free, open-source learning management system Moodle.

The colleges in 15 states will now be able to tap into the collection of open textbook resources compiled by the international group of institutions that make up the OpenCourseWare Consortium in a new partnership.